


Your Weight in Candy Corn Liquor

by SkaianRedeemer



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: F/M, Halloween Costumes, No Game Troll AU, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkaianRedeemer/pseuds/SkaianRedeemer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a day full of tiring public appearances, mating season stress and the insinuation that they might want to consider a quadrant swap, Nepeta and Equius decide to get absolutely shitfaced blotto.</p><p>It seemed like a good idea at the time.</p><p>[Given up on this one, I'm afraid.  If you want to read the jokes and ideas that did make it to page, feel free to read on.  An extended write-up is on chapter 3 covering the content I wasn't able to produce through to the ending.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Caution: This fic's been dumped. Chapter 3 is a collection of notes and drafts for clarity's sake. If you want to read what is here, I hope that you enjoy!

Unbelievable. You and Nepeta have been invited to some sort of costume soiree being thrown by the Empress in celebration of Ghoul Day. She insists on informal costumes. Informal costumes! More like inappropriate! Frivolous! 100dicrous! You refuse to go. Repeatedly. You tell everyone you know, starting with the rustblood as she will most certainly be attending. You make it absolutely clear that you will not even be on the planet on which the event is taking place. Nepeta agrees to go at once. Unbelievable.

You refuse to let her get away with her coup all at once. In fact, you lecture her on it at length. She lectures you on her costume details in return. Well… shares, really. Nepeta is not one to lecture. She is actually quite involved in the costume, you realize after you start to calm down. You can't understand why in the slightest. Her prototype (you refuse to acknowledge it as a completed work) is utterly roughshod and will not stand up to the slightest wear and tear. It would be irresponsible of you not to make a few simple adjustments, and negligent if did not to provide new structural framework for a modeled part, or three. Several days later, your work is complete and Nepeta is thrilled. You can now settle in for most definitely not going to the Empress' silly costume party under any circumstances no way absolutely not, no matter how many hours you have already invested in it via your moirail.

…Oh, fiddlesticks.

You arrive on-world after a week of travel and are at the gala that very night, under heavy guard. You have come dressed as a thug/mechanic from your favourite series, Post-Apocalyptic Alternia Where Resources Are Scarce But Have Been Assembled Ramshackle Into Wildly Imaginative Killing Devices Powered By An Improbably Large Offscreen Source Of Fossil Fuels Despite Implications That None Exist. Nepeta has arranged herself as some sort of… breakfast pastry. That is the best you can do to describe it, even considering the time invested. She has also found some excuse to wear her usual hat and tail on top of the costume. You are certain is some sort of scam against you specifically, but she assures you as to the costume's accuracy. Nonsense. But there is no time to argue. The guards have you quickly ushered into the public chambers, and up toward the Empress' platform. You are given a seat along with the only half-welcome, unmasked faces of your childhood compatriots. You nod to each in turn: you owe them at least that much in greeting. Together, you once toppled an Empire. The bond could only be closer if you had overthrown an entire universe and constructed a new in your image, but that would be ridiculous.

The Empress is the first of two exceptions to the arrangement. She sits back from the rest of you, from atop her throne: Feferi Peixes, under her detestable trident-and-rainbow banner. You are seated, as per usual, between Serket and Makara; Nepeta between Captor and Maryam. Good. You're glad to see the Empress' masters of ceremony at least have their minds in the right place. The Empress' infuriating attempts to "cull" the hemospectrum have nearly stopped your heart and it is always nice to see them stumble.

Serket greets you with insults, Makara with a… goodness… a hug. He is thoroughly inebriated, even with an hour to go before the banquet's formal start. Before him sits a tall glass stained green, which the servants keep constantly filled and will likely continue to do until he is once again needed on-duty. You look to your own setting and find a glass of your own, thankfully untouched and filled with candy-corn liquor: a holiday tradition made from ground grubhorn and more sugar than is healthy. It is a powerful, aged vintage: you can smell the stuff even at a distance. The others are treating theirs lightly. That is more than acceptable. Only you, with the STRONGest liver imaginable, would want to down more than a glass of the stuff in a short hour.

As you move to take your seat, you are stopped by a fuss at the other end of the table. Nepeta appears to have had some trouble taking her seat, and Vantas has taken it upon himself to blame her for the holdup. Nepeta's blush is visible from here. If you were not in front of a crowd you would deck him, as he well deserves. He knows exactly how she feels, if the feelings have dimmed over the years. Old wants die hard, as a self-proclaimed relationship expert would surely know! Thankfully, Nepeta has certain parties invested in her interests to keep her on her feet. Certain, nameless parties, with fists the size of Vantas' head.

Something past Nepeta's unwieldy costume catches your eye, and your breath. The rustblood is smirking at you and your frustration. Her skin is rough from work, her smile, you're certain: malicious. She is wearing some heathen costume of old, the gown of some rich princess or priestess from another time. As per societal dictates, her robes are trimmed in maroon, but the addition is clearly new. Otherwise she is clothed, like the gods and goddesses of old, in white. Outrageous! Maybe even sacrilegious! (You're not entirely clear on the precepts of ancient gods, considering your closest source of information on that subject is, well, her). What frustration was triggered by Makara's embrace quickly spills over into an attack of the nerves, and you reach for a rag from your costume to pad your forehead. Aradia sets her teeth on her lower lip in a grin – sharp, viscous… i-improper! And in public! – and toasts you. You cannot quite find it to toast her back, though once you take a seat, you quickly down a mouthful of the stinging-sweet cup set before you.

Empress Peixes makes her speeches, only vaguely related to the festivities. Her speechwriter is far too heavy-handed, and she manages to turn even this frivolous season into a political point before the speech is done.

"She sounds like she's _this_ far from going home to cull the zombies into happy homes," Serket mutters, echoing your inner thoughts. It is approximately at that moment that the assassin strikes.

She emerges from the crowd, some greenblood servant, howling about economic murder and swinging a set of bolas as her personal weapon, which you later learn were rigged to explode. She never gets the opportunity. All of you draw your weapons, along with the Empress' bodyguards and half the crowd. It is Ampora who makes the killing shot, through the skull. The rest of you are not far behind. Sixteen rifles, one optic blast and a sopor-splattered rubber chicken strike the greenblood before the body falls and the Flourite Octet even stop rolling. The Empress keeps a steel face as the victim disappears under the weight of a cartoonish two-ton safe made of blue light.

The attempt is quickly swept under by ceremony, as ever. You all return to your seats, and the only sign that anything is wrong is the Empress, who keeps a tight grip on her trident. When no one is looking, Ampora heads to her side to whisper to her. Ampora was born for this job. He is simply the best there is. You once had a… personally unpleasant reason to get to know the fellow a few years back, and like him well enough. You can't imagine what he would have done with his life if you had never had the chance to overthrow the old Empire. You remember him from your childhood. You do not think it would have ended well.

The rest of you dawdle. You know how it is. Parties always go downhill after the assassin drops. You take another drink. So do the others.

The food is lovely, the dancing that follows: dull. Personal fights break out from time to time, which are always worth the watch, but dances by necessity hold little interest for you, since you cannot participate. You stare at the rest of the party from one corner, nursing your second glass of candy corn liquor. You watch your associates in particular. Troll society had never much known what to do with the lot of you. The previous Empress had been so long-lived that any allies who had helped her to power had long since passed away. At any given time, she was left with only her immediate quadrants. There is simply no precedent for the eleven of you, certainly not at a party. You leave the poor diplomats to their business, as you feel you should, while certain others bustle about, disrupting high society at random.

Others like Nepeta, who happily talks to everyone she sees, all of them leagues less comfortable in their frivolous costumes than she. Even the Master Lususlaver, Nepeta's nominal superior, did not want to talk to her, even when she rattles about an Arachniterror she housed the other day. Then there were others like Vantas, who had ended his meal by scaring away the higher-ups with volume and consistency until he had been given the wide berth you both feel he rightly deserves.

Pyrope goes back and forth between him and Nepeta, whispering in ears, like some sort of pigeonbeast instead of a respected attorney. You know she is flushed with the mutant, and for that reason, Nepeta has long since kept her distance out of respect, but she still jitters with anticipation of every passed message. You should have words with her at once.

"Best make sure you don't lose her to the two of them," says a whisper, sharp and hot in your ear.

Oh goodness, you've crushed your glass.

She laughs at you. "I guess next time I should say hello?"

There's candy corn liquor in your glass wounds. You don't see how this is funny at all.

Aradia is resplendent and mocking in her costume all at once, made infinitely worse by proximity. She hands you a handkerchief one you've seen before, as she is quite fond of wiping it out in your presence. The thing is pure red, save the monogram. Her red. You ignore it, as ever. "Oh, don't be silly, Equius," she says. "…Your blood's mingled with worse."

You bar your teeth at her (cracking one in the process), and wipe your hand on your costume instead. You assure yourself that this is exactly what you would have done in any other situation. It adds to the authenticity.

You look up, and notice that Captor and Pyrope are looking your way. With a scowl, you take Aradia by the arm in your most careful fashion, and lead back into your dark corner. She ignores your agitation, instead focusing on her arm. Her brilliant white sleeve had been coated with your blue fingerprint.

"You know," she says, half-lost in thought, "the Young-period cultists were actually quite fond of blood sacrifices. By the time a ceremony was complete, they would be covered in a rainbow of colours from across the spectrum. Lusus mostly. Sometimes Troll."

"Is that what you are?" you ask her, not particularly caring for the answer. "Some ancient priestess, a highblood far above your station? And blood sacrifices sound like Subjuggalator work. U-unbelievable. It's as though this is designed to irritate me."

Aradia nods with a smirk. "You! Oh, Equius. Yes, I'd say it's quite possible the Young-cultists did precede the Subjuggalators. They were Indigo or higher, I know because this costume is half _work_. It's got nothing to do with you." She whips out her handkerchief and rubs ineffectually at her sleeve. "A boy from my old neighbourhood back on Alternia discovered what he thinks may have been the fortress-temple of a Young-period tribal Empress. _Surprising_ number of white artefacts in his collection. Paint flecks left over, mostly. We think she might have been trying to set herself up as some sort of Goddess."

You yank the last large shard of glass from your hand and begin applying a proper bandage from your sylladex. "And so you have set _yourself_ up like her worshipper, in this obvious attempt at spectrum-hopping!" You reach out to indicate the primitive gown, your hand falling along the familiar curve of her side. She deflects your idea, though not your hand, and instead begins to fiddle with the stem of her own glass.

"Honestly, Equius," she says, before taking a small sip of her drink. "Be reasonable. I have no reason to be here to just to annoy you. We have less than a perigree until the Drones come knocking. I think my focus should be in the quadrant I've lost rather than the one that's not." You grunt. Aradia lost her matesprit, a field scientist, in a counter-assault against a distant world. You had… not been kind with the news. But she appears to have recovered. "If anyone, I'd be trying to attract the attention of my new assistant," she says with a smile. "But as you can imagine, he wasn't invited."

That _was_ directed at you. And you most certainly _can_ imagine. "Scandal!" you bark at her. "I cannot—I will not tolerate this choice of lowblooded matesprit!" you say. Somewhere in the distance you hear Nepeta's laugh at something Pyrope passed from Vanta. You screw up your face but try to keep your attention on Aradia.

She returns a haughty "hmph!" and turns. Your hand brushes under her breast through the turn, before she steps directly away. Oh dear. She did that on purpose. Damn her intuition! Her whispering ghosts! She has gotten into your head, and you are now thinking about… _the act_. Her writhing with another filthy rustblood. Deplorable! And then to have your pail handied in with… with such a… a… Damn her! And damn your own inability to shake those sort of mental image—aaaaa goodness you need a towel.

She once again offers her filthy handkerchief. You will burn that thing one day. You are most adamant.

"I see you haven't made any progress of your own," she observes as you attack your forehead with your sleeves.

You glare at her under your rags. "I will have you know that I am in the middle of a major project," you say. You left your last matesprit. It is not the first time. Six pailing seasons since seizing the throne for the Princess, thrice a sweep since you were eight and a half, and you've only kept a matesprit across two of those seasons. The break-ups have never been very drastic, even the one that took place days before the drones. You are simply not good at the quadrant. None of your partners have ever held your interest for long, certainly not your pity. You know you have not exactly done the Empire a service with your weak flushed offerings, but between projects you usually feel lucky just to make past the Drones at all.

"It must be nice," Aradia muses.

"What?" you ask. You hold out a hand to a passing waiter and down the new drink immediately. More of the deplorable orange glop. Knowing a kismesis situation when he sees one, the waiter quietly hands you another before leaving. "What must be nice? The slow-crawling feeling of an approaching death sneaking up from behind?"

She actually laughs at your joke, with makes you smile in spite of yourself. Casually, she steps back to your side, and you both take to watching the crowd together, and she touches your arm as you cannot quite do the same. It is a rare moment that acknowledges your true equality: a deeper sort of connection that has been the very thing lacking in your matespritships.

"What I meant was that it must be nice, I mean, having a safety net." Aradia's voice is softer, minding the crowd. "Don't you think? If all else fails…" She drifts off, but raises her glass toward the crowd. You follow her hand and realize that she is pointing toward the odd, poptart-shaped blob deep inside the crowd. Nepeta.

It occurs to you that Aradia's voice might not have been failing just for public reasons. "I'm sorry, Equius," she says. "It seemed like an appropriate jab in the heat of the moment. You realize I would never…"

"Of course," you say, to her apology, and then "Of course not," to her idea. "A moirail gambit is a f00lish enough concept on its own, much less with..."

"She is a very good person," Aradia says, interrupting you. "And cleans up well enough. You remember Feferi's last ball, when Kanaya worked so hard on that gown she gave her and, ah…" You glare Aradia into silence, but she only does so for a moment before becoming cross with you. "Stop that. She's your moirail," she says sharply, "she's one of the lines of defence between you and me. I'm not going to insult her, and I see no reason not to compliment her." You back off, and Aradia nods in approval. After a short pause, she continues. "And you both care about one another a… great deal," she says. "I'm just saying. If all else fails… it must be nice. It's been so long since I last had anyone to… well."

She takes another drink, and touches the small of your back. "Equius, I'm bored. Not with you," she reassures, "just in general. And barring good luck, I have… nothing to do tonight. If you can't say any better, well, maybe both of us will have nothing to do tonight."

Aradia leaves you with that, spinning her glass by the stem. It would be a lie to say you do not file her goodbye away for later, but you are presently distracted. You watch your moirail from a distance, in sudden confusion. Aradia's suggestion… nags at you. The thought had never truly crossed your mind seriously. Certainly, Nepeta is bright, strong in her own way, and… ah… enthusiastic, in love.

You shove the thoughts aside. Clear-headed, it begins to dawn on you that no matter your kismesis' change of heart, the comment was initially meant as a black flirtation. It is simply a comment meant to get past your defences and gnaw at you. You refuse to let it. Instead, you down your drink and go searching for a fourth.


	2. Chapter 2

"AC says 'pfffffft.'"

Nepeta somehow manages to make holding one of the crystal glasses look dainty, in active spite of the bulk of her costume. Her eye roll is not so dainty.

"Stop that," you order, "we're in polite company."

"Fiiine," Nepeta wines, and takes another drink from her glass. Then she giggles. Nepeta has always insisted the stuff tickles her throat. "But it's really not that late!"

"Not that late!" you exclaim. "It's…" It's the last perigree before Pail Day! A time for begrudging pity and pitied hate! Dead Bachelor's Perigree! The Lonely Heart's Last Walk! The Unclean and Jerk! The Great Big Shallow Bucket! The… oh, goodness. "There is not near enough time left for either of us to be lollygagging!"

"Equius, we are here for _three days_ ," Nepeta says. "We only get to see our friends enough as it is. I don't get to see _you_ enough as it is. I know you don't have time right now, but…" This is true. She had invited you to come with her on one of her off-world trips a while back, but you had declined. There is too much work to be done. You see Nepeta several times a perigree, about as much as anyone could hope, but it is far from ideal. "I'm going to spend time with our friends while I still can," she says. Nepeta casts about as if to find a friend and perhaps deflect the conversation, but all she sees is glassy-eyed Makara. She waves to him, but he does not seem to notice.

You consider tapping Nepeta on the side of the costume to get her attention, but you have a good idea of what that would do to the paper mâché. "If you're going to talk to our… friends… why not speak to Lord Ampora?"

Nepeta flicks angry eyes at you. "I don't wanna talk to Eridan."

Here we go. You ready the usual. "Now, I know you and Lord Ampora have had your share of difficulties…"

"We're not having 'difficulties,' I don't wanna talk to him!" Nepeta begins to pace. "'Hi, Eridan! How are you doing? No, I don't have a matesprit or kismesis, _again_. Funny you mention that five words after seeing me.'" She takes off her hat and starts to wrench the poor, bedraggled thing. You cast a look up at Ampora, who is scoping the crowd as usual. He is all business, and does not so much as glance over at the two of you. Nepeta shares him the same courtesy.

The two had never had much of a relationship. The two had never had much of _any_ relationship, with a scathing record of last-second quadrant fills. They had been one another's emergency red on their first pailings, again for their third and emergency black on their fourth. They tended to fall apart almost immediately after. Given Nepeta's love of relationships, the lack of fallout always struck you as odd. Once, Nepeta took leave to visit you after a rare serious breakup, and fell into tears at the sight of you. There had never been so much as a disappointed sigh for Lord Ampora, and nothing from him in turn. Not the first time. Not any time after. And yet they continued to fall in with one another, at the last minute.

Nepeta looks half primed to start chewing her hat in public again. Time to step in, before she makes a fool of herself. "Ne—"

"WhOa, KiTtY," says Makara, from nowhere. You look over to see that he has tipped back onto the back legs of his chair, which he has not left at any point in the party. He grins absently up at Nepeta. "Is iT JuSt mE, cHiCa, Or aRe yOu tOtAlLy rOcKiNg a bRiLlIaNt fUcKiNg rAiNbOw eVeRyWhErE YoU Go?"

Nepeta has to turn back to face at him, as her bulky costume is in the way. Catching sight of it makes her giggle – giggles interrupted by a quick hiccup. "I think it's just mew, Gamzee!" She then starts doing a little jig, completely ignoring your audible sigh. Makara's eyes go wide as he watches her dance, his hallucinated rainbows, or more likely: her stapled-on tail flapping about at random.

"FuUuUuUuUuCk…"

Nepeta is obviously enjoying herself a bit too much and is even singing some nonsense song under her breath. You raise a hand in front of her face and snap your fingers, to the sound of bones cracking. "Focus!" you remind. She looked up at you and blinks, innocent. "Well?" you say. "I don't see how you're having so much trouble with this… seasonal problem. You seem to have no trouble at all getting the attention of other Trolls."

"What, Gamzee? Shakin' my butt?" Nepeta looks like she's expecting you to finish a joke, but all she gets is a reproach for using the word 'butt.' She immediately repeats it. "…Equius, it may be cute, but my butt's covered in cardboard and paper!" She shakes her behind again, which is made filthier with intent. "Besides," she says before you can open your mouth. "Gamzee has a matesprit and a kismesis! They've been together for sweeps."

You blink. "The Highblood has… what?" You gape at him. You respect the man, but not for his competencies.

Nepeta grins and leans up against you, taking your face in her hands. Your own hands go immediately behind your back, as is only safe. "Youur jeeeealous," Nepeta intentionally slurs.

"Now I asked you to stop that," you remind.

Nepeta lowers her eyes. "Equius," she says in a more serious tone, and a whisper. "This kitty knows you're busy, and she knows you're a little scared. We can keep that between us!" she adds quickly. "And she purromises that if you really-really want, she will help you look for a nice, pathetic Troll for you to curl up with at pail time. But—"

"…Disgusting," you mutter.

"You brought it up!" she protests.

"I didn't say it out loud!"

Nepeta pats your cheek. " _But_ … don't worry about me, okay? I don't want you to right now. Just trust the pretty purrbeast, okay? She will look for her own mates in her own time!" She switches off of her childish lilt and looks at you seriously. Not that you could look away. She has you tightly grasped, and for all the effort she has put into her own strength and resilience, you still worry you'll break her with any sudden movement. "In a few days, I'm heading on a review to some of the new army recruits. Strong Trolls."

"Lowbloods," you scoff.

"Not all of them!" she says, as though that would have dissuaded her either way. "We'll be looking in on their lusii to see how they're doing. I'll find somebody nice there."

"New recruits are far too young for you," you insist. She releases one of your cheeks to gesture: two fingers a pinch apart. "Two sweeps is not a little!"

"Yes it iiiiis," she insists. Then she leans forward on her tip toes, deliberately bumping her nose into yours. "And once I've found a flushedmate, I'll grab one of the ones who've been abusing their lusus. They think we're stupid and we'll think they're battle wounds," she explains. "I'll find one and..." she grins at you, "and stuff 'em in a supply closet for an hour or… how it goes. Nothing _too_ bad," she promises.

You do not grin back. "You will not." Ludicrous. The Nepeta you grew up with would never have approached black romance with such flippancy. Truth be told, she is still uncomfortable with the _relationships_ , but the actual act of pailing…? You have been spared the details, but you get the impression she's grown to find something agreeably feral about the experience. You don't want to think about Nepeta like that. Especially not right now, both "right now" in general and in how she's right up in your face. Her breath smells of the delicious roast you were both served, and concentrated sugar. The rustblood will pay for this.

Nepeta laughs. "Nooooo, but I will say it to annoy you," she says, grinning. She then pinches your cheek, which is worse. Well, almost worse. The worst part is her blatant lie. Too many of Nepeta's mates have been dragged in from work for her not to be alluding to the truth.

Nepeta decides she's stunned you into enough of a silence to wrap things up. "AC is going to talk to her furrends now. She just hopes the musclebeast will fill his own quadrants before braying into hers!"

She pokes you in the nose, but you refuse to acknowledge her jokes. "Puns," you mutter. "Chasing after younger Trolls. You should act your age before you have to resort to emergency measures." Nepeta looks over her shoulder to steal a glance at Lord Ampora, and shrugs to you. "That was… not what I meant," you say.

Nepeta looks like she is about to ask what you mean, which would be thoroughly awkward, but instead she perks up at the sight of something over your shoulder. "Hi Karkitty!"

You tense up, mostly your fists, and turn about when Nepeta releases you. Vantas is at least proper in his uniform, which is all you are willing to grant him. His costume is lazy, as he has done no more than carry weapons of a serial killer from one of his romances. You would not have expected a dollop more effort. Legally, he is unable to put on another's uniform, even if it would fit the costume. As a result, the uniform is his own, complete with the grey bands he wears that disgrace you all. He acts as though everyone in the room did not already know the ugly truth!

"'Karkitty,'" Vantas grunts. "That's 'Majorgrappler' to you, Social Work." He jabs a finger at Nepeta, now at your side.

"Majorgrappler Karkitty," Nepeta says just loud enough for him to hear. He growls. You would take his head off his shoulders if Nepeta's hands were not on yours from the moment you turned your back. She is correct to do so. As much as you hate to admit it, Vantas is the few of you high enough to have been invited to this soiree on career merits alone. He wears command easier than his poor costume. His face is stern, even if it has lost its youth through wounds and the subtle, creeping grasp of the curse in his veins. Nepeta addresses these early signs of age as "handsome" instead of "cute." You had different words in mind.

He scowls at Nepeta. "Aren't we not talking, today? Wasn't Terezi going back and forth playing the telephone game so that I don't actually have to listen to your drunk purring all night?"

"Nepeta does not purr when she is inebriated," you insist. It would be demeaning. You decide to add: "And even that is rare."

"It's true," Nepeta says. "But it'd be fun!"

You cut her off. "Since you seem as glad to be here as we are to have you, would you make your point to Nepeta and crawl back to where you came?"

"I'm not here to talk to the mewling lusus-lusus," he says. Nepeta smiles in spite of your glare. "I'm here to talk to you, gearmule."

Nepeta laughs and pats your arm as she turns to leave. "I'll give you both some purrivacy," she says. You're not sure what's more enraging: Vantas' demands or Nepeta's belief that you don't need her there to pull your punches against this insect. "See you later, Karkat," she says. She heads off in the opposite direction, though pauses in front of Gamzee to do another dance, which he is too stoned to notice this time around.

You are never sure how to take Vantas' confused reactions to Nepeta, like the face he is making at present. Do they make you happy because he is not interested, or are they insulting for the exact same reason? You consider throwing her positive qualities in his face for a moment before the idea of cataloguing them makes you uncomfortable. Thankfully he recovers before you let anything out of your fool mouth.

"You finished the rotors?" he snaps.

"The…" Oh. He is here to talk business. "The rotors! You think I'm so incompetent I couldn't have finished more than the rotors!" You sweep a hand past him in rage. Though it could have taken off a limb, he does not flinch. "They practically shine, and have been done for days!"

Vantas is not impressed. "Blue spitshine," he mutters. You almost raise your voice in response, but these sorts of things are somewhat classified. Vantas thankfully keeps his demands professional, which is more than you can expect of him, and things stay above the classified line. This is the sort of careful work the Empress expects of you, after all. Nevertheless, you both down two glasses of candy corn liquor before the conversation is complete. You're delighted to find that Vantas is a lightweight compared to your STRONG liver, and things might have taken a turn for the entertaining if his matesprit had not arrived.

"Oh Equius," she says to you. "I could smell you from over there. You're not trying to get my Karkles drunk, are you?" Pyrope looks at you over her glasses, her one good, shifting-teal eye staring back. "That's _my_ job."

As much as you would like to get rid of blabbering Vantas, you briefly consider entertaining a conversation with Pyrope, if only because she is capable of one. Your project does not truly concern her, but there have been thefts on site that you're sure would interest her. Unfortunately, you are both interrupted by Serket, who introduces herself to the conversation by shoving Pyrope from behind.

"Sweats!" she says to you by way of personal greeting. She is dressed as a pirate, original as ever. She has even gone to the decency of covering her vision eightfold lens with a proper patch, though the lens is no doubt still at work, seeing through the thing. She raises her robotic arm. "Tune-up!"

You glare at her, but take the arm, which she detaches from her shoulder. She then turns to Vantas. "Hey Karkat."

Vantas struggles to focus on her. "…fuuuuuuuuck… yoooooou…" he tells her straight up. "Ffffff... no," he says to Terezi, who had rapped him on the arm. "Let me clarify! FFffffffff--"

You pick a small screwdriver out of your inventory and ignore them. You simply do not understand the dynamic. Nepeta understands, but you simply do not care. All you need to know is that Serket comes in later than she used to for her tune-ups. Perhaps it's because you and Vantas share a homeworld, or because Pyrope is often there with him. All you know is that the Scourge Sisters have not spoken in a sweep. You don't know why. They spoke after the Incident: the one that cost Serket her arm, Pyrope her eye, left Nitram with sliced tendons and had had the rustblood talking for weeks about drama after drama with Captor. They spoke after all that. You can't imagine what happened since that could have qualified as "worse."

As you are focused on your work, someone approaches. "Screw it a little loose, for me," he says. Ampora. You look up at him and nod, politely, though you have no intention of violating your own level of craftsmanship. He is not watching you either way. His eyes are on one of his guards. He signals with his hands as one of them swaps out for a new guard from the hall. "How you doin'," he says, and then addresses you by that grunt of an abbreviated name, the one that sounds like "Ekk."

"Excellently, Lord Ampora," you say. The words slip out automatically. "My commendations to the Empress' staff, and to her for her speech."

"Yeah, she talks my ear off for it every single one of them," he says. "But I've gotta get everything in line for an hour 'cause she wants me to 'mingle.' Guess she called you away from your work too, huh?"

"Perfectly understandable," you sputter, though it's not how you feel. You could have been doing good work today. You're almost glad to have Serket's arm back in your hands.

"Yeah, well, at least you're doing good for yourself. Hey, is Nep still going to be here in half an hour?" he asks. He's become a better liar than Nepeta in his line of work. The comment almost seems off-hand.

You can't help it: you begin to sweat. "Nepeta?" You're torn by competing instincts. Nepeta clearly does not want to talk to Ampora, but you can't deny for all he is a Seatroll, he is a Troll in a position of power. And as little as she wants to admit it, they get along very well. You ultimately decide there is no sense in hiding the obvious. She _is_ dressed as a giant pastrycat. "She should be about."

"Awesome, I'll go say hi later." He continues to keep his eye on the crowd. "Rad?" he asks.

You begin sweating even harder. You can't deny that for all his position of power, he is still a Seatroll. You would be damned if you end up entagled with him on two fronts, even if you would like to think Aradia has better tastes, for a rustblood. "She should be here," you admit.

"Tav? Sol?"

Goodness' sakes, man! "…as I understand," you say, slowly, to keep your composure. "We are all obliged to stay here at Her Imperious Condescention's pleasure."

"Hey," he says, "you know Fef hates that title." You nod, and he pats you apologetically on the shoulder. He then tries to hide it when he wipes his hand off on his pantleg. "I might as well just make the rounds. Fef'll get off my back for that. Okay, Equ, I'll see you after I kick Vris in the shin."

"Heard that!"

The interruption comes just about as you finish your work, and you prevent a potential fight by slapping the arm back on Serket's shoulder without asking for her permission. She tells you off for that, but you're not exactly in the mood to entertain. Foolish girl, with her infighting and childish insults. First Nepeta and now this mass of telephone games and Lord Ampora's disrespectful catch-all approach. You don't have anything to say to any of them. Instead, you retrieve another glass of liquor and wander toward the crowd. You would like to think that you are more direct than the whole lot, and that it serves you well.

You mull things over as you mull over the contents of your glass. Your tongue is getting numb to the sugary stuff, which just makes it easier to swallow. Light-headed, it occurs to you to apply your direct approach to the situation. Pailing season? You can be direct about that. Perhaps Nepeta is right. Yes! You apply another rag to your forehead as you scope the blur of a crowd. With no better leads, you pick an arbitrary direction and head in. Look out, highbloods. Equius Zahak is going flirting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to rewrite this entire chapter. I hate rewriting chapters, so of course it keeps happening to me lately. What I hate most of all is how it leaves me with a dead shell of a chapter and like... what do you do with it? Abandon it? Tear it to bits and reassemble it into a hellish lifeform of fiction? Do you... do you poke it? I'm going to poke it.
> 
> ...Unsatisfying.
> 
> Jegus fuck, are you two not drunk yet?


	3. All Falls Down

[And here's where we wrap up. I've been working on this solid all weekend and all I have to show for it is 3-4 pages of content, 3 pages of rejected content, 11 pages of additional rejected versions of that rejected content and others, and 5 pages of disjointed content that followed the three or four that I have. So I'm done with this fic. Sorry to anyone who was hoping to see it through, but I offer the following consolation for whatever it may be worth: a write-up about what was going to happen next.

The first few paragraphs came out well enough:]

   


"Well aren't you a delicious bite of steak."

Did you really just say that? Oh dear, you did, didn't you. You realize it's a terrible line, but in your limited defence, he _was_ dressed as a musclebeast, and you are starting to run low on openings. Now what was it that rustblood once told you about pick-up lines? ...Wait! Yes, that was it. "Stop."

You ignore the throbbing at your jaw, confident that your former conversation partner has only further added to your costume's mounting authenticity, and so press on. You think you haven't been to this side of the room yet. People have been moving about, making it hard to navigate. Moving, in that way people do. Vertically. Oh, goodness! The floor. Perhaps you were hit a littler harder than you thought. Or maybe it's the drinking. Possibly the drinking. You've been at it for a while. But mostly the head injury. Gosh it's filthy down here. Someone should inform the staff. You would, but you intend to run out of midbloods before you talk to the lowbloods for any reason.

It's been a while since you set out. You've flirted with someone dressed as a zombie, one as a movie star, and sadly exchanged only the previous, pleasant conversation with the musclebeast. The gladiator ignored you, the alien rejects you, and the Troll dressed as an insect lusus outright balked at your thoughts on the hemospectrum. You almost drive your glass into the back of his head for that, but are interrupted the casual butt of a passing toaster strudel/purrbeast and a wagging finger from Nepeta. All right, you mime to her. This one may walk home on his own two feet, and also the four decorative feet dangling from his costume. She keeps an eye on you for a good ten minutes after that. 

"Do you, uh, need some help, Equius?"

"Fine!" you assert at once, not entirely sure what direction the speaker is coming from. Nitram backs away from you before you before you stand up and break his arms in the motion. "I simply tripped," you say.

"I didn't say anything else, if you thought that maybe, I… did?" Nitram steps back on awkward feet, dressed as some sort of orange-haired grub's toy with a jewel on its bare belly. He looks even more absurd than usual. As he dawdles on his feet, your trained ear can pick out the soft whirrs and clicks of your machinery at work replicating a working Achilles tendon. The old government believed the device was a cybernetic enhancement. Except for exactly a dozen abnormalities, the new government believes the same. You can't imagine how hard it would have been to hide Nitram if Serket had dealt him a more critical blow in their youth. Personally, you're of the opinion it would not have been worth the effort to do so.

"Are you… having a good time, Equius?" he asks.

You squint at him. You're actually having such an awful time that you forget that other people might not be having the same, and his attitude is setting you at odds. First the rustblood has you looking at your moirail in such unseemly ways, then you end up cajoled by every one of your youthful associates in turn, and then your attempts to find a mate have only taught you the taste and consistency of imperial floor wax. "…I'm fine," you repeat.

"Well, that's certainly, uh…" Judging by the sound of his hidden rotors, Nitram is considering taking a step to the side, lest you fall on top of him. Just the kind of insult you'd expect from a brownblood. You have no intention of the sort! "…I talked to Nepeta, earlier. She seemed good."

"Excellent," you say. "I'd hate to think we came all the way out here dressed as we are to not enjoy ourselves." You hope she hasn't propositioned this one. You gave her that advice in the hope that she would flirt with someone professional, at—

"Yeah, I guess there are times when I'm not, exactly, professional," Nitram says.

… _Crumbmonkeys._ You try to recover: "I was simply musing out loud." Unintentionally. Out loud unintentionally.

"I guess she's having, uh, some trouble finding a mate?" Nitram seems as unwilling to discuss this as you are, but you suppose you _did_ bring it up. But what would he know? Him with his teased orange hair, that deplorable use of belly jewel below bare chest, the strong upper body of a champion Cavalreaper, forming a portrait mixed with the soothing ambience of mechanical action. You remark to yourself that you'd never – _never!_ – unless you were really, _really_ drunk…

…

…Hemospectrum! _Hemospectrum!_ "Excuse me," you say, pushing past, limiting contact. You do not get far. Your poor luck takes another nosedive only steps from Nitram, as you run straight into the carefully patrolled wall of security set around your bubbly host.

"Equius!" she says, false glee masking her reaction to your drunken arrival. She waves you past her guards, who are moments from making the mistake of grabbing you by the arms. Feferi smiles as you step forward, in that way she's developed to remind the rest of you that there are times you're supposed to smile as well. "I'm absolutely krilled that you came!" You bow to her to hide your reaction wince. She only puns when the twelve of you are in isolation. It's… unbecoming.

"I'm sorry, Your Imperial Condesce," you say, forgetting the advice you received earlier in the day. "I was just on my way out, back to my lodgings." This was not your plan, but being near Feferi has reminded you just how easily your drunkenness could result in an incident worse than staggering past bodyguards. Perhaps it is time to retreat and regroup. Though she must understand the same, Feferi seems disappointed, even a little hurt, but snaps her fingers to her security. Their leader speaks into her radio.

"Yeah, maybe it is time for some of us to start turning in," Feferi says. "Maybe we'll all get a chance to talk in private in another day or two, Equius," she adds. The speech is formal, but the sentiment heartfelt. You do not make eye contact, as much out of choice as proper Imperial decorum.

Instead, you look at some of the other members of the Empress' coterie. Feferi is dressed in her usual robes, though has taken in some part of the season with tentacle earrings you suppose are standing in for a costume. Beside her is Eridan's number two, a member of your own spectrum class – the highest landdweller Feferi could squeeze into security. But far more prominent than even the Empress is a nearby companion, who looms over you, dressed as some sort of heavily armoured bat-creature. Moulded muscle and animal aspects? You cannot help but stare. Perhaps… if you're quick, you might have one last chance to introduce yourself to someone—

"Its Me Equius" Kanaya says from the costume.

"Miss Maryam!" you stutter. You're ashamed, and immediately try to beat your original thoughts out of your head. Of course it's Kanaya! Except for Ampora, she has the most reason to be by the Empress' side, being her Mistress of the Wardrobe. The role makes her the most qualified around to fill that most important of political roles: to flatter dignitaries at the cost of one's professional dignity. Besides, Miss Maryam also serves the Empress as her on-again/off-again auspistice. You try to search for words. "I see you've… done away with your usual elegance for the evening."

Kanaya shrugs. "It's a holiday to celebrate the broad cultural impact of Alternia's native necrotic fauna. Gowns hardly seemed appropriate."

"Q-quite," you stammer. You leave off with an awkward pause, and rub at your head. As you do, you realize that your head has begun to clear, and you are surprised to realize that your dizziness was indeed more to do with your recent blow to the head than from your intoxication. Your faith in the laws of comedy has been shaken.

 

* * *

 

[At this point, the fic breaks down. The idea was to get Equius and Nepeta drunk, drinking and together. Unfortunately, the earlier setup (with Equius still thinking about Aradia's suggestion and his trying to leave Nepeta be to find a mate) made this close to impossible. Several times I considered just ignoring it, but was never comfortable with the idea of them just hanging out, for thematic reasons. In fact, now that I think of it, I even subconsciously attacked the idea in dialogue later on. One common idea I had for bringing the characters back together was to have one or the other break into violence. The one instigating the violence was often Nepeta:]

   


Any further no-doubt-unpleasant small talk is interrupted by the sound of a fight in the distance. You all turn – the Empress mutters "Shoot," and seems to stop herself from moving, to remind herself that every problem at her party is not her personal responsibility. She begins to scan the crowd for free guards, and for Eridan, while you and Kanaya push toward the fight personally. Between you and Kanaya's costume, you are both among the biggest Trolls in the room, and you quickly clear the way.

What you find in the middle of the fight does none of you credit. Surrounded by some of your fellow rebels you find Eridan, pinned to the ground by Nepeta, her diamond claws raised to strike. You catch the claws near the base, where they are bluntest. She yowls up at you before she notices who you are, and you gesture her away. She follows out of instinct before she can cause any more damage.

"Equius!" she shouts at once. Behind you, the Empress breaks the line from her bodyguards to set on their captain. Nitram and Pyrope, stuck between the four of you, begin to slip back into the crowd before they could be blamed for the fight. You cast a questioning glance over at Nitram. He shrugs earnestly. You believe him. He is the worst liar you have ever had the displeasure to meet.

Nepeta shakes against your grasp, so you turn your look on her. There is not much else you could do without breaking her bones. Once she finally meets your eye, you find that one of hers is bloodshot: no doubt it will be ringed in dirty black and green by morning. Her breath stinks of candy corn, and her hands shake: that would be the sugar more than the intoxication. You put aside your rush of pity and gently nudge the claws, which shakes her whole arm. She glares at you and releases the grip, only to immediately demand her weapons back. You grant this, and she shoves them into her dented and torn costume.

"What is this?" you say.

You almost don't get it out. Nepeta starts answering as soon as you open your mouth. "He has been staring at me, all evening!" she says. "All evening! And then he comes over and I think 'Good! I couldn't interrupt him when he was working but now I can be a good little kitty and tell him I don't want to do this again and we can all be friends.'"

You glance back at Ampora. He is not being given the chance to explain himself. Instead, the Empress is chiding him about "causing an incident." He apologizes repeatedly, if indignantly. It is moments like these that you are happy you and Nepeta can normally keep your head down from politics. You are sure that Feferi and Eridan will have their chance to talk in private, but so long as they are in the public eye, there was nothing to be done. You realize that applies to you, as well, in the middle of this party. Indeed, this could quickly become an evening knee deep in politics. You cut Nepeta off with a jerk of your hand across your throat. Having watched your eyes, she seems to understand, and nods. She and Eridan lock eyes across the hall, and their looks shoot venom.

 

* * *

 

[Why attack Eridan? Explaining that would sure have been a good lead-in to the backstory between them, and I did complete a chapter where it happened, but stopped myself from submitting it because it would have required something you don't want in your comedy: trigger warnings. Yeah. I'd love to explain why that is, but like the chapter itself, I decided to remove those explanations, because I don't want to trigger anyone. This fic was supposed to be brighter than that. But you can see how badly things must have been going for me that "complete, accidental tonal shift" was the closest I came to success.

So back to the main body of the plot. After dealing with whatever I chose to do with the rest of this chapter… and I still don't even know… it was going to end with Equius and Nepeta leaving for their hotel room (probably being kicked out) and vowing to get even more drunk. This was the big scene for the fic, and probably the entire final chapter: the two of them going back to Equius' hotel room together, drunk out of their minds, to deal with mating season stress, embarrassment, friends, estrangement, adulthood and that one, niggling idea Aradia stuck in Equius' mind.]

   


It seemed like a silly request at the time. You were both already mostly drunk, but with Feferi supplying the liquor, you were both prepared to surprise yourselves as to how far you could stretch that. But the problem you've always had with trying to get drunk is that it's very hard for someone of your size and metabolism to get truly wasted. To that end, you have taken it upon yourself to consume your weight in candy corn liquor, in a sense bordering on the titular.

…damn you're drunk. Look at that thought you just thunk. Just look at it! "Bordering on the titular." You've never done anything even remotely eponymous, much less when bound inside a hotel room serving as your home away from home. As a result of this foolish line of thought, one would have to assume that one is now inebriated, and that one would appreciate if one of those one's would mind their fucking business and leave one alone without all this wordplay.

Wait, hold on.

Nepeta is no better off than you, which is to say Nepeta cannot stand. This is not out of inability, but because she insists on pouncing everywhere. At the moment, she is crouching at the rim of your recouperacoon, which you have been informed on high authority is the rejuvenating hot springs of some awful cutesy place name she just made up. You sit in the rug in the middle of your room, having sworn off sugar for the rest of your life, forever. Your tongue feels like it has grown fur. You will never taste again. It is not possible.

"I wonder if I could build a new tongue," you say. Fuck you're drunk. Look at that say you just said.

"A better tongue!" Nepeta says. "To eat and bathe and kiss and liiiiick." She giggles. "'Lick.' 'LiCK!'" After a few repetition, she seems to have decided that the second syllable is more entertaining.

"You haven't been eating that sopor, have you?" you ask her. You haven't really been watching.

"Maybe I just enjoy words, Equius! Maybe I'm a words-smithstroyer." She hops over from one fixture to the next, ending up in your kitchen. "Do you know what we need?" she calls after you. "Mewsic."

"Then why are you in the kitchen?"

Nepeta rummages around for a moment, invisible to you behind a countertop. Moments later, two bags of chips pelt you from above, like mortar shells. You stay perfectly still, knowing that if you touch them, the entire room will be coated in oh shnizzle at least there was two of them. Nepeta glares at you over the counter and tosses another to replace the one now lining the floor. She then bounds over a few more pieces of furniture to reach the room's built-in stereo system to turn on the radio. Nepeta makes a face at the music, but realizing her own preferred genre of skin drums and bone percussion never had much of a following in the fleet, she leaves it be and then hops directly into your lap. She picks up a chip and prods you with it. "You're a messy," she says.

"A messy what?"

"Yes. Shush." She offers you the chip, which you refuse, so she takes it instead and then slumps against you. "Equius, we don't hang out any more."

"Sure we do," you say. "We spent nearly a week together the last time I got to your ship. That's more than most can say."

"That's true," she says, "but we never _hang out_. I wanna stalk around your room while you build robots again. It's hard," she adds, after going for a chip. "It's hard and lots of people understand, but there's not much they can really do about it either."

 

* * *

 

[The idea from that point was that Equius and Nepeta would, quite simply, talk about every little thing that had happened, while laying on the floor. It was a feelings jam that I was hoping I would be able to sneak past the readers before they realized what was happening. To encourage this, I seeded the fic with plotlines the reader would hopefully want to hear about that would be discussed here.

While it was not properly seeded due to Chapter 3 being incomplete, the first topic would be about Feferi's reign. Feferi's reign is weak due to its changes upsetting the existing power bases, and this topic would backbone the entire conversation. This was going to lead to a conversation about how the group had tried to establish themselves in that society, taking the risks they would need to take to survive, at the cost of their interpersonal bonds. While most of them knew this would be the cost, there are enough outliers that are suffering as a result of it, namely Nepeta. Anyone who realizes that this general weakening of relationships was behind Equius considering the moirail gambit wins 25 points. I tried to set that up by having Aradia realize the same out loud, but since the rest of the fic has Equius going contrary to that, I assumed most people would have forgotten.

Talking about what everyone's been doing to survive brings the conversation to Karkat, Terezi and Vriska's mystery problems:]

   


"Oh, Vriska's a pirate," Nepeta says with a roll of her eyes. Her nonchalance combined with the years you spent living next to the spider-woman mean that it takes you a while to remember that that is an illegal activity. As she notices comprehension dawn in your eyes, Nepeta goes from laziness to panic. "Oh no! Nonononono!" She holds up hands for you to slow. "Equius, you can't tell! Oh, stupid!" she says, as though to herself.

"Do the authorities know?" you ask. You sound rehearsed, and perhaps you are, stumbling down a checklist you must have repeated to Nepeta a thousand times before you took the tests to get off the Homeworld instead of left behind, culled. "Have you informed your immediate—"

"The right people know!" she insists. "Feferi knows, and Terezi knows, and you can't tell anybody, Equius!" She takes two deep breaths as if to reach past the haze of her own drunkenness. "If the wrong people find out that one of the Empress' friends is a criminal, they'll want to investigate all of us! They won't bother to investigate people like Tavros and Aradia."

"And Vantas," you say, before you can let the idea of some private police going after Aradia sink in.

Nepeta nods. "That's why he's going after her. That's why everyone that can has a role. Karkat and Sollux work for Terezi to catch her. Kanaya's tried to get her to turn herself in. Eridan and Feferi will make sure that she gets to… gets to appeal to Gamzee."

"And in the meanwhile, she continues to show up at all of our social events so that none are the wiser!" Something clicks together in your mind. "…What was that you just said?"

"Appeal to Gamzee," Nepeta repeats, carefully.

"…you're setting her up to be executed," you say carefully.

"And that's why Feferi and Terezi didn't want you to know," Nepeta says. "She still goes to you for her arm. You need to act perfectly normal or she might notice!"

"Of course!" you say, insulted. "I understand entirely. […]"

 

* * *

 

[When Equius announces that he'd be happy to see Vriska go, since she's a danger to society, Nepeta confesses to him that she actually feels terrible about being involved in the whole thing via Terezi's boasts. To Nepeta, this situation represents the group's collapse as they progress into adulthood just as much as it represents, to Equius, their successful claim over the same. Nepeta is deflated. While I could not settle on how to convey this, she feels she has deeply failed as a moirail that Equius would willingly use murder as a political tool. Possibly using that as a springboard, the two begin to talk about more of the others. Conversation shifts to Eridan.

The truth about Nepeta and Eridan's relationship is that Nepeta really doesn't know how she feels. From the author's perspective, I would say that she enjoys the emotional connection of being with one of her few remaining close friends, and actually enjoyed their first pailing, but is not attracted to him enough to form a relationship, and so what they did have has collapsed.

Nepeta is, indeed, so unsure about what's gone wrong that she asks Equius about his own relationships, hoping for some guidance. On her insistence, and to Equius' slowly eroding discomfort, they begin to talk about their sex lives in detail. As they open up, the two become more and more comfortable, with the anxiety of the day clearing from the air. I have more than a few quotes from this conversation in my roughs, but they're all out of context. They lack the buildup of trust that was meant to precede them, and so the character's intention in talking about them (comfort, love) is lost, and it would seem crude to me by comparison to put them here. I'm sure if you want to read a few dozen lines about Equius and Aradia or Nepeta and Eridan having sex, you can find more than that just by straying out of this fic and towards the nearest E tag. Those would probably be more fulfilling, being in their proper context.

At one point in the conversation, Nepeta was going to drunkenly flip-flop on whether or not she'd ever like to see her biological children, not that it's something she really has a say in. Equius thinks this is a non-issue, which Nepeta concedes, honestly sounding a lot like Roxy a month ahead of the fact, if I do say so myself. Nepeta uses this conversation as an excuse to start roleplaying about her "kittens" ("and little bitty catfishies"). As Equius tries to stop her from roleplaying, she starts play fighting with him. This begins to escalate, until the two are all but truly fighting, though they always seem to come to a draw. This continues until they collapse against a wall, exhausted.

Equius moves to get up, but she grabs him and asks him to "Stay." They talk briefly about mating season again, and it's then that Nepeta asks Equius if he ever considered quadrant hopping with her – an idea she came up with independently of Aradia. He realizes that now he doesn't want to. Indeed, the fic goes back to clarify that their mounting duel was actually an impromptu gesture of drunken, uninhibited pale affection: stopping one another from a ramping series of violent acts. Nepeta agrees, and it begins to settle in on the two of them that they will probably be together for the rest of their lives.

The two greet the revelation that they're truly committed to one another in one of the "lesser" quadrants with both deep happiness and a particular, lost sense of disappointment. Nepeta curls up against Equius as they talk about this, and discover that for all this makes them happy, it's also solved none of their problems, save that they have a single strong bond where the rest of their friends have fractured. Nepeta asks Equius if he ever wished if they had met in different circumstances, where one kind of pity would have never formed and grown into the other, echoing his thoughts in narrative. The two exchange a small set of pitying and heartfelt compliments that were never going to be easy to write, especially considering that many of the people who have kudo'd this fic are not readers of A Hand in Holding Hands and I wasn't going to cover old ground, but I was going to give it a shot. As they talk, Nepeta: drunk, exhausted and tired, falls asleep against Equius' shoulder.

Equius carefully extracts himself and goes back to his recouperacoon, knowing Nepeta is used to sleeping without, but wakes during the night as she shakes in some nightmare, and so he carefully dribbles sopor slime on her, calming her sleep.

In the morning, which was possibly going to be a new chapter, I was going to open with a pesterlog, where Equius apologizes to Aradia for missing their date, explains what happened in brief and then flirts with her about getting back at her for putting the quadrant swap idea in his head in the first place. Nepeta arrives, having showered to get rid of the sopor. She is looking at Equius' musclebeast porn, which he keeps with him at all times for "personal reasons." He comes up behind her and she looks up at him, causing me to write this paragraph:]

   


Her eyes peer up at yours, her eyes verdant green, they shine like diamonds in a sense that might have originally been titular if it had not been so overt regarding the central romantic premise intentionally obfuscated by comedic antics designed to attract an audience not typically drawn to this kind of scenario.

…damn you're hung over.

   


[Nepeta reaches up to hug him, which he reciprocates as best he can, though Nepeta has to drop her towel to do it. The platonic nature of their relationship having found a permanent grip, Equius does not initially seem to be affected by the sexual nature of the scene ("You're wearing your tail?" he says instead. "Mm-hm! [beat] I can't not wear my tail, Equius. It's attached to my butt."). That lasts, at least, until he looks around, and realizes and points out that she's surrounded by "ejaculating musclebeast paintings."

And the fic wraps up thus:]

   


Nepeta reaches up to pat your cheek. "You're gross," she blithely observes. You can't really contradict her this time. "I'm going to make breakfast, she adds, bouncing off, still completely nude.

You turn after her. "I am more than capable of preparing food for the both of us in my own chambers, you realize."

"No you're no~t," she sings. "That's why there's holes in your counter!"

You don't have a response for that. "…Those were there when I got here," you say.

Unbelievable.

 

* * *

 

[So that is the long and sordid tale of the fic I let get away. A story of drinks and 'rails and kitty cat tails, and Iiiiii don't have a conclusion to put here. I'ma do my best not to let this happen again, like with my other Troll Fable that I've been working on almost as long. In the meantime, happy Pail Day, all. To those to whom this applies: have your buckets ready.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GA: Im [Troll Batman](http://archiveofourown.org/works/242235)  
> GA: And I Can Breathe In The Incipisphere   
>  EB: but we can all breathe in the incipisphere!   
>  GA: John  
> GA: Thats What I Said


End file.
